Wisconsin Family Action is proud to announce that WFA president Julaine Appling (photo, left) will be speaking and taking part in a guest panel at the annual CPAC convention March 2-5 at the Gaylord National Resort and Conference Center in Washington, D.C.

What exactly is CPAC?

CPAC stands for Conservative Political Action Conference. Founded and hosted each year by The American Conservative Union, CPAC “combines ideas with action to leverage the strength of thousands of grass-roots activists to break through the resistance of Washington’s powerful elites.”

The four-day conference begins with Activism Boot Camp, an unparalleled initiative that brings together the finest conservative organizations involved in activism training and campaign management. The remaining three days of the conference unite the political leaders of the conservative movement with the people who make up the movement.”

WFA president Julaine Appling will be speaking on Thursday morning to discuss “The Family Prosperity Index,” a revolutionary tool for evaluating the ability of families to thrive in a particular state and comparing state rankings from year to year. She will then participate in a panel at 9:20 a..m. on Friday, March 4, along with other conservative powerhouses such as Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, Larry Kudlow of CNBC, and Dr. Wendy Warcholik of American Conservative Union Foundation. The panel topic will be “State of the Family in America: How Do We Measure Success?”

According to the CPAC website, “The powerful combination of knowledge and activism is critical for the advancement of conservatism. Under its new leadership team, ACU has launched CPAC 365, a nationwide effort to do the work of CPAC year round. This initiative will ensure the growth and continued success of the grassroots conservative movement by keeping it educated, equipped and motivated for principled and effective action.”

Other CPAC speakers include all of the 2016 presidential candidates as well as Wisconsin’s Governor Scott Walker and House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI).

“As a former divorce mediator, and current couples and family mediator, I have heard every excuse that parents use to feel better about breaking up their family. In this article, I’ve outlined several of the most common lies that you might be telling yourself if you’re considering divorce.”

Julaine Appling, WFA president, agrees with the author in that these are, indeed, lies, “In these final days of our month-long emphasis on marriage, talking about divorce—and especially its effect on children—is, sadly, imperative. Even in the best of circumstances, divorce is hard on kids, both immediately and even years later. If there are minor children in the home, their well-being needs to be paramount as the dad and mom consider ending their marriage.”

In yesterday’s opinion in EWTN v. Burwell, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals caused double the damage by rejecting a clear religious liberty claim and trying to save the HHS contraception mandate at the same time. This is not the court’s job. It was supposed to objectively analyze a Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) claim, which it not only rejected in an attempt to set religious liberty back in time, but then jumped through hoops to justify the government’s contraception and abortion-related services scheme which wasn’t even passed by Congress and instead was imposed by executive fiat.

Wisconsin Family Action president Julaine Appling responds, “This federal court of appeals decision is chilling and is a good reminder that we never know when a case involving religious freedom will be in Wisconsin. The judicial philosophy of judges matters. This April we elect a justice to our state Supreme Court. Our religious freedom could hang in the balance. Christians need to get educated on the candidates before it’s too late.”

Madison – “We couldn’t agree with Governor Walker more,” said Julaine Appling, president of Wisconsin Family Action. “As he noted at today’s billing signing, every taxpayer in Wisconsin, whether or not they are pro-life, should be pleased that with the signing of these bills millions of their hard-earned tax dollars will stop being used inefficiently and wastefully. And we would add, even fraudulently.”

Today, at a beautiful pregnancy resource center, Life’s Connection in Waukesha, Governor Scott Walker signed two bills into law, Assembly Bill 310 and Senate Bill 238. Assembly Bill 310 redirects federal Title X funds away from organizations that provide abortions and to other qualified health centers in the state. For the last 35 years, Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin has been the sole recipient of this money.

Wisconsin Family Action and its national family policy alliance say questions remain for Donald Trump.

Madison – Wisconsin Family Action, along with CitizenLink and its national alliance of nearly 40 state-based family policy councils representing millions of Evangelicals nationwide, today released an open letter to presidential candidate Donald Trump calling on him to answer direct questions on his policy positions.

Julaine Appling, president of Wisconsin Family Action, said, “Time is ticking. We want Mr. Trump to clear up his contradictory record on issues tens of thousands of Wisconsin citizens care about. We have invited Mr. Trump several times to join our Presidential Candidate Teleconference Series. He has yet to accept, leaving our constituents wondering.”

Tomorrow is Wisconsin’s spring nonpartisan election. The polls are open statewide from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. The only statewide race with a primary is for a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court. However, many communities may have other primary races for mayor, city council, village or town board, or school board. Voters are reminded that photo ID will be required to vote in this election. Wisconsin does still have same-day registration. For more information, click HERE or visit myvote.wi.gov.

This race for a ten-year term on Wisconsin’s highest court is very important. The top-two vote-getters will go on to the general election on Tuesday, April 5. Every vote counts—and as Christians we need to be sure to vote –and to vote knowledgeably and responsibly. For information on the Supreme Court candidates visit your Election Central HERE.

Madison – “Stopping waste, fraud and abuse has been a hallmark of the state legislature recently, and today the Assembly stepped up once again to protect Wisconsin taxpayers from these misuses of their hard-earned tax dollars,” said Julaine Appling, president of Wisconsin Family Action.

This afternoon the State Assembly passed a bill (SB 238) requiring certain family-planning organizations, including Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, to bill the state and its tax payers the actual acquisition cost of prescription drugs it purchases and dispenses through a Medicaid drug program, plus these organizations can bill for a defined dispensing fee. The bill passed on a 61-35 vote along party lines.

This is an important update on some of the bills Wisconsin Family Action has been following and keeping you informed about as well as notes from WFA president Julaine Appling. Scroll down to find out how you can take action NOW!

Senate Bill 238/Assembly Bill 311:would make it illegal for organizations that are abortion providers to overbill the state and its taxpayers for drugs it buys very cheaply through a Medicaid program and then dispenses to their clients. Some estimate stopping this overbilling will keep over $4 million per year away from Planned Parenthood of WI.

STATUS: This bill is scheduled for its final vote, which would be in the Assembly, tomorrow, Thursday, February 11. However, the Assembly is having a shortened floor period tomorrow—ending by 4 p.m.—to that the Democrats are free to go to the Democratic Presidential Primary Debate tomorrow evening in Milwaukee.

Julaine’s Note: There’s speculation that with this shortened time on the floor, this bill may not actually get a vote tomorrow—we’ll monitor it closely. This Assembly vote is the final vote needed before the bill goes to the Governor.

UPDATE 2/17/2015:PASSED by the WI State Assembly on 2/11/2016 – CLICK HERE to read more.

Assembly Bill 469: The “student privacy protection” bill. This bill requires all WI public schools to designate restrooms and changing rooms as exclusively for males or females. It also requires that students use the facilities that correspond to their biologic sex as recorded on their birth certificate. If a student or his/her parents wish to use another facility, they can request that of the school administration. The administration may grant this request by providing either a single-user facility or a multi-user, gender neutral facility where the stalls are completely self-contained units with locking doors.

STATUS: This bill is still in the Assembly Education Committee.

Julaine’s Note:Assembly Education Committee chairman Jeremy Thiesfeldt (R-Fond du lac), held a public hearing on this bill in November, but apparently doesn’t think he has the votes among his committee members to get the bill passed out of committee, which I find very interesting. There are 11 Republicans on that committee and 6 Democrats. It takes just 9 votes for a bill to pass out of that committee and be ready for the entire assembly to vote on. Apparently some of the Republicans who like to say they are conservative are not willing to support this bill. My editorial comment is this: the issue this bill is addressing is not going away; it’s not only not going away, it’s going to get worse. The longer the state waits, the worse the problem is going to be in school districts all across our state.

Assembly Bill 800: This bill would legalize and regulate Daily Fantasy Sports games—which are really just online gambling. Authored by and co-sponsored by mostly republicans, this bill would basically result in the largest expansion of gambling in Wisconsin’s history because it would open up online gambling, which to this point has been illegal in our state—and most other states. The hearing on this bill was late last month.

STATUS:The bill is still in committee.

Julaines Note: I don’t see any committee action involving this bill and no movement on the senate companion bill either. With time ticking away, it is looking as if this bill won’t get floor votes.

WHAT YOU CAN DO:

Even in the waning days of this session, citizen input is very important. If you want to give your elected officials your opinion on any of the bills mentioned above, SB 238, AB 469 or AB 800 — now is the time to do that.

To find out who represents you and his/her contact information, CLICK HERE to visit your Election Central. You’ll find this information, and more!

Additionally, you can call the state’s toll-free legislative hotline at 800-362-9472 or you can check online at legis.wisconsin.gov and put your address in the appropriate place on the home page or you can all our office at 888-378-7395 and we can help you get that information.

Both the State Senate and the State Assembly were on the floor yesterday dealing with lots of bills as they bring the floor-period portion of this legislative session to an end.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos held a press conference yesterday in which he said the Assembly would have its final regular floor period next Thursday. What he means by that is that will be the last day the Assembly votes on bills originating in the Assembly. There is a day in early March that the Assembly will meet to take action on bills that originated in the Senate and are still pending in the Assembly—or on bills that originated in the Assembly but had an amendment put on in the Senate. But no matter how you view it, within the next month the state legislature will finish up its work on bills and then pretty much leave Madison to go back to their districts to begin campaigning for the fall election.

What does this mean?

On this week’s Home Front radio program, WFC president Julaine Appling gives legislative updates as the Wisconsin State Legislature heads into its final weeks of floor activity for this session. She also discusses the Spring Nonpartisan Primary Election coming up this Tuesday, February 16.

Madison – Last week 34 US Senators and 140 Members of the US House of Representatives submitted a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the right of states to pass laws regarding protecting the health and well-being of women seeking an abortion. Among those senators and members of the House are Wisconsin’s US Senator Ron Johnson (R) and US House of Representatives members Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-CD 1), Jim Sensenbrenner (R-CD 5), Glenn Grothman (R-CD 6), Sean Duffy (R-CD 7) and Reid Ribble (R-CD 8). The case, Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, is scheduled for oral arguments on Wednesday, March 2, before the US Supreme Court. The Court will likely issue an opinion in this case by the end of June.

On March 2, the Supreme Court will hear Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole, its first abortion case in more than 20 years. The case looks at a 2013 Texas law that plaintiffs say gets in the way of a woman’s constitutional right to end a pregnancy. The court will decide whether the state’s rules place an “undue burden” on that right.

Known as HB2, the law places specific requirements on abortion clinics and has forced many to shutter across the state. It requires doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital no more than 30 miles away, and sets clinic standards that are similar to those of surgical centers, including specifics on room and doorway sizes, staffing and anesthesia, among other things.

Those in favor of the Texas law say it is intended to protect women’s health, as it brings health and safety standards for abortion clinics more in line with those of other medical facilities.

WFA president Julaine Appling gives kudos to Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel as well as our US Representatives and a US Senator that also support this type of action, “We are very pleased Attorney General Schimel has submitted this brief. Wisconsin has worked over the last decade to pass laws that inform and protect women seeking an abortion. I am also pleased US Senator Ron Johnson and US Representatives Sean Duffy, Glenn Grothman, Reid Ribble and Speaker Paul Ryan have signed on to a similar brief supporting the right of states to pass such laws.”

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Madison – “I can declare that a dog is a cat and that doesn’t change the truth or the reality—even if I dress the dog up like a cat. It’s still a dog,” declared Wisconsin Family Action president Julaine Appling in a public hearing yesterday.

The Assembly Committee on State Affairs and Government Operations held a hearing Wednesday on a bill, Assembly Bill 800, that goes to great lengths to try to convince people that gambling is not gambling. The bill blatantly declares that Daily Fantast Sports (DFS) is not gambling and creates a means to legalize the games and regulate them, ostensibly for “consumer protection” reasons.

Yesterday a Wisconsin Assembly committee held a hearing on a billthat would legalize and regulate online daily fantasy sports games. Introduced and supported by Republicans, the bill follows the pattern used in other states calling these activities games of skill rather than games of chance and declaring they are not gambling. Wisconsin law prohibits online gambling. Several attorneys general from other states have recently declared these games to be gambling and deemed them illegal. Julaine Appling, president of Wisconsin Family Action, testified against the bill.

“Daily fantasy sports games are clearly gambling,” says Appling, “They have all the components of gambling. This bill would create the largest expansion of gambling in Wisconsin’s history by making gambling as accessible as a smart phone or tablet. The result? More problem gamblers, more lives destroyed and more families harmed. That’s much too high of a price to pay.”

MADISON, Wis. – An Alliance Defending Freedom public records request has revealed that Planned Parenthood’s Wisconsin affiliate provided researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison with the hearts and brains of unborn babies up to 18 weeks old and within five minutes of being aborted despite the fact that both UW and Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin have denied any such exchange.

“Clearly both UW Madison and Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin lied,” says WFA president Julaine Appling, “Perhaps they would say they were meaning no one profited from the exchange? What does that mean? We contend even if no money was exchanged, this disrespects human life. This practice is a dangerous slippery slope. Who is the next group of people who will be offered on the altar of scientific research?”

That’s the language the New Democratic Party government in Alberta, Canada, is telling teachers and school administrators to use when adressing the adults with whom students are living. Out: “mother” and “father.” In: “parent,” “caregiver,” “partner,” whatever.

And God help you if refer to one of the little rascals as “him” or “her.”

Julaine Appling, president of WFA states, “Canada isn’t much ahead of the United States on this issue. It’s a very hot issue in Wisconsin public schools right now. It’s wrong. It’s harmful to the development of young people. Parents, please, especially during this week of celebrating school choice, make sure you explore all the options you have and make a decision that is truly in the best interest of your child.”

Madison – Wisconsin Family Action president Julaine Appling issued the following statement commending the Wisconsin Senate for passing two bills dealing with public funding of abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. The Senate passed Assembly Bill 310 which redirects federal Title X funds away from organizations that provide abortions and to other qualified health centers in the state. The other bill, Senate Bill 238, stops organizations that provide abortions from overbilling the state for drugs they buy inexpensively through a Medicaid program and then dispense. Both bills passed on 19-14 votes, with all Senate Republicans voting for the bills and all Senate Democrats voting against them. Assembly Bill 310 passed in the Assembly last fall and will now go to the governor for signing. Senate Bill 238 heads to the Assembly for a vote.

Today the WI State Senate voted on two bills (AB 310 and SB 238) that together will redirect millions of taxpayer dollars away from Wisconsin’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. The bills will stop over $7 million a year from going to the abortion giant. One bill redirects federal Title X money to health centers that don’t provide abortions, and the other stops organizations that provide abortions from overbilling the state for drugs they purchase and dispense. Julaine Appling, president of Wisconsin Family Action, was present for the votes.

SB 238 PASSED in WI Senate 18 AYE, 14 NO; SB 238 prohibits family-planning organizations, including Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, from overbilling the state for drugs they purchase and dispense through a Medicaid program.

Julaine stated, “We are especially thankful for Sen. Chris Kapenga the author of the bills and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald for getting these bills to the floor. All the Senate republicans voted for both bills and all the Senate democrats voted against them. The assembly passed the Title X bill last fall; so now it is headed to the governor for signing. The overbilling bill still needs a vote in the Assembly.”

Read full WFA press release commending the Wisconsin Senate on their votes to defund Planned ParenthoodHERE.

Pundits and sociologists who scratch their heads at the teen suicide phenomenon don’t even take into account the growing popularity of making suicide legal. And to be sure, suicide is seeing a P.R. boon.

…

Just how related the rise of assisted suicide, championed by so many of today’s overachieving elites, and the contagion of teen suicide are, we don’t know. But how can we as a society fight one kind of suicide while enabling another?

“Suicide is the second leading cause of death among teens in Wisconsin,” says Julaine Appling, president of WFA, ” Fortunately, right now we don’t have legalized physician assisted suicide, but you can be sure teens are listening to the discussions. Parents are the best defense teens have. They can create an open and supportive family climate and help their teens deal appropriately with pressure.”

WFA president Julaine Appling, “Today the WI State Senate will vote on two bills (AB 310 and SB 238) that together will redirect millions of taxpayer dollars away from WI’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. We are thankful for senate leadership, Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald, and Senate President Mary Lazich, for scheduling these votes. The state Assembly has already passed AB 310. Presumbably that one will be headed to the governor this week.”

“What could be more wrong-headed, dangerous and more indicative of where our culture is headed than this idea?” says Julaine Appling, president of Wisconsin Family Action, “Parents need to be sure they are doing everything they can to prepare their children for living, surviving and even thriving in the midst of such a society. Talk to your children; teach your children; pray for your children. Churches need to support parents in this responsibility. “

National School Choice Week begins January 24

This week highlights and champions all the educational options available to parents in the various states. Wisconsin has long been a leader in school choice. Currently, Wisconsin offers the following educational options in addition to the traditional public school. Public school open enrollment, public charter schools, public magnet schools, public online learning, traditional private schools, private schools that are part of the voucher program, and homeschooling. For more information on these call 888-378-7395.

Saturday, January 16, is Religious Freedom Day. January 16 is the anniversary of the passage, in 1786, of the Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. This statute became the basis for the establishment and free exercise clause of the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Religious Freedom Day is officially proclaimed by the President of the United States each January 16. Last year, President Obama issued the official proclamation on January 15.

“Frankly, I think religious freedom should be celebrated and more importantly protected and practiced every day,” says Julaine Appling, WFA president, “Our founders called it the ‘first freedom.’ Presidential proclamations notwithstanding, we know religious freedom is under assault in our country. We have to do more than set aside a day to commemorate this foundational right and freedom.”

Click HERE to learn more about what YOU CAN DO to promote religious freedom in America.

Today scores of pro-life Wisconsin citizens, in bitterly cold temperatures, gathered at the state capitol in Madison for a brief outside rally for life. The Rally for Life was sponsored by the state’s 3 leading pro-life groups, Wisconsin Family Action, Pro-Life Wisconsin and Wisconsin Right to Life. Speakers included leaders from these organizations as well as the legislators who authored pro-life bills that are pending in the state legislature. After the outside rally, those attending went inside to visit their legislators and urge them to support these bills.

Julaine Appling, president of Wisconsin Family Action, said, “We are so grateful for those brave folks who joined us! The opportunity to pass these bills ends no later than the middle of March. Now is the time for the legislators to know the people of this state want these bills to pass. The bills stop millions of taxpayer dollars from going to Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin.”